The Presidency yesterday said that it was currently feeding over five million pupils in 28,249 schools across 19 states in the country. The pupils are being fed under the government’s National Homegrown School Feeding (NHGSF) Programme.

Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Vice President, Laolu Akande, in a statement, said that the states include Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa and Niger states. According to Akande, Kano and Katsina states are expected to be added to the beneficiaries states in the coming weeks.

He said the goal is to tackle hunger, and to create jobs for Nigerians in line with the government’s inclusive growth plan. The presidential spokesman said that over 50,000 cooks are currently engaged under the programme.

Akande explained that the school feeding programme, which is part of the administration’s N500 billion National Social Investment Programmes, NSIP, has a target to feed 5.5 million schoolchildren by the end of 2017.